Istanbul_ The Collected Traveler_ An Inspired Companion Guide - Barrie Kerper [52]
Crescent & Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds, Stephen Kinzer (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2001). Kinzer, a veteran foreign correspondent, was named the first bureau chief in Istanbul for The New York Times in 1996 (he is now based in Chicago). For this book, Kinzer has written ten chapters, and in between each is a mini-chapter of sorts referred to as a meze. Each meze is a more personal account of his life in Turkey, and taken with the other chapters makes for a winning combination.
The Crusades
It’s impossible to fully grasp Istanbul’s place in history without knowledge of the Crusades. First and foremost among resources is Steven Runciman’s outstanding work, A History of the Crusades, originally published in three volumes in 1951, 1952, and 1954 by Cambridge University Press. Over the years it has also been published in paperback editions by Penguin and Cambridge, always in three individual editions (or at least, I’ve searched for a single-volume edition and cannot locate one). Sir Steven, who passed away in 2000, was perhaps uniquely qualified to write this: he was reading Latin and Greek by age five, and throughout his life he mastered an astonishing number of languages. So when he wrote about the Near East (and nearly all of his more than fifteen books relate to the Near East), he relied on accounts not only in Latin and Greek but also Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Hebrew, Armenian, Syriac, and Georgian. From 1942 to 1945 he was professor of Byzantine art and history at Istanbul University, where he began research on the Crusades. To say that A History of the Crusades is based on immense scholarship is an understatement.
According to his obituary in the The Times of London, Runciman did not portray the crusaders with sympathy. In his eyes, the crusaders destroyed the “real centre of medieval civilization and the last bastion of antiquity, Constantinople, and the Byzantine Empire.” Even if you read only one volume in this trilogy, it will likely be an eye-opening and hugely interesting experience. (As an aside, if you get caught up in Runciman fever, Cambridge University Press published a wonderful tribute to him in 2006: Byzantine Style, Religion and Civilization: In Honour of Sir Steven Runciman, featuring a collection of essays that was long planned by British Byzantinists and includes a memoir of his life and a full bibliography.)
The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, by Amin Maalouf (Schocken, 1989), is revealed through an Arab lens. Interestingly, while the Arab view sees the Crusades as unprovoked and brutal to the point of disbelief, it also proudly honors Saladin, who was sultan of Egypt in 1175 and precipitated the Third Crusade by his recovery of Jerusalem in 1187. Saladin was renowned for his knightly courtesy and made peace with Richard I of England in 1192. He is a hero among the Arabs for delivering the greatest defeat ever to a European society.
I have written of Karen Armstrong in my previous books, and her Holy War: The Crusades and Their Impact on Today’s World (Doubleday, 1991) is an excellent source. Armstrong, one of our foremost commentators on religious affairs, is also the author of the excellent A History of God (Knopf, 1993) and Islam: A Short History (Modern Library, 2000). She has taught at the Leo Baeck College for the Study of Judaism and the Training of Rabbis and Teachers and in 1999 was awarded a Muslim Public Affairs Council Media Award. After writing Holy War, Armstrong explains she was “so saddened by the conflict between the three Abraham traditions that I decided to